"_Saturday, 7th October._ Wind still ahead and blowing hard; very cold and dismal. Oh! when shall we see home!... I thought I could observe a kind of warfare between the different winds since we have been at sea. The west wind seems to be the tyrant at present, as it were the Bonaparte of the air. He has been blowing his gales very lavishly, and no other wind has been able to check him with any success. "I recollect on one day, while it was calm, a thick bank of clouds began to rise in the northeast; no other clouds were in the sky. They rose gently in the calm as if fearful of rousing their deadly foe in the west. Now they had gained one third of the heavens when, behold, in the southwest another bank of thick black clouds came rolling up, and, reddening in the rays of the setting sun, marched on, teeming with fury. They soon gained the middle of the heavens where the frightened northeast had not yet reached. They met, they mixed, the routed northeast skulked back, while the thick column of the southwest, having driven back its enemy, slowly returned to its repose, proudly displaying a thousand various colors, as if for victory. "At another time success seemed to be more in favor of the northeast; for, shortly after this great defeat, the southwest came forth and, like a petty tyrant intoxicated with success, began to oppress the subject ocean. It blew its gales and filled the air with clouds and rain and fog. Suddenly the northeast, as under cover of the darkness, and as one driven to desperation, burst forth on its too confident enemy with redoubled fury. Old ocean groans at the dreadful conflict; for, as in the warring of two hostile armies on the domains of a neutral, the neutral suffers most severely, so the neutral ocean seemed doomed to bear the weight of all their rancor. The southwest flies affrighted. And now the northeast, vaunting forth, stalks with the rage of an angry demon over the waters; the ocean foams beneath his breath, it steams and smokes and heaves in agony its troubled bosom. "But, alas! how few can bear prosperity; how few, when victory crowns their efforts, can rule with moderation; how often, does it happen that we reënact the same scenes for which we punished our enemy. For now has the northeast become the tyrant and rules with tenfold rigor; he pours forth all his strength and, drunk with success as soldiers after a victory, at length sinks away into an inglorious calm.